“There is history in all our aspirations.”

The youth are a prized population, for they represent the much talked about demographic dividend and so countries are supposed to nurture and help them develop. However, most approaches are instrumentalist, and see young people as mediums for prosperity. Or as a problem that needs a solution - through jobs, skills, education and even through settling down. But it skirts around the hard questions of young India’s identity. How do the youth see themselves in society? And what are their individual hopes and dreams? In contrast to childhood, the long coming of age years is less about protecting innocence, wonder and imagination and more about the hard knocks of figuring out a path. Stopping and starting, disillusionment, and loss are often part of that journey. In this episode, we take a look at what it’s like to be young, and what it is to grow up. Because you never fully get over the loss of what you give up in your youth. The feeling of remorse, being haunted by what you didn’t do, couldn’t do. The choices you didn’t make and the paths you couldn’t take? What is the preventative of that disease? Being able to peacefully reconcile those choices and being able to accept yourself and those around your for the choices you made - that is what growing up is.